


Fruits of His Labors

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Holidays, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 10:04:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17139755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Just when Noctis thought he knew everything there was to holiday traditions, Nyx continues to surprise him. He doesn't understand what it all means, but if it can get a laugh out of his father, he doesn't need to.





	Fruits of His Labors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glaivenoct](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glaivenoct/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, Brina! Just a little somethin' based off that conversation about fruitcakes that I couldn't let go lol I hope you have a good holiday!

“Your father has a sense of humor, right?”

“You’re asking me that like you’ve never met the man before,” Noctis said, carefully applying a piece of tape to the meticulous folds of his wrapping.

Nyx rubbed the back of his neck, eyeing the loaf pan on his kitchen counter with fretful skepticism. “I don’t know. People tend to act differently around the holidays.”

“What people?” Noctis laughed, pausing to toss an incredulous look at Nyx’s back.

He frowned at the worried lines gathering in Nyx’s shoulders. Noctis abandoned his ruinous work of ribbons and wrappings on the floor to investigate. The kitchen counter was covered with various mixing bowls and yet to be opened paper bags of sugar and flour and other such ingredients. Looked like the makings of another successful baking venture.

Noctis couldn’t see the problem. Nyx was a good cook; he stuck to what he knew, didn’t try to pretend he was something he was not. He had his small, mental recipe book passed down from his mother and he worked the basis for any of his dishes up from that. Noctis always liked what he made – even though his delicate Lucian palette didn’t have nearly a high enough tolerance to allow him some dignity when trying to survive the spice.

“You plan on making a… comedy cake?” Noctis tried to puzzle out, not sure why his father would need a sense of humor to enjoy some baked goods.

“Something like that,” Nyx chuckled. “How serious is your dad’s holiday party? We talkin’ black tie formal, or more like ugly sweater casual?”

“It’ll be the same as all the dinners you’ve come to before,” Noctis promised, curling his hands around his arm to give him a reassuring squeeze. “There will just be a few extra people at the table, is all.”

“And how serious are those people?”

Noctis groaned, pretending that Nyx’s last minute holiday panic was an imposition, just to show him how ridiculous he was being. “The only thing that changes at a Caelum holiday dinner is that there’s a crap-ton more food, and everyone’s just a little bit more drunk than usual. You’ll know everyone there, Nyx. No worrying about first impressions.”

Nyx huffed out a sigh through his nose, addressing the organized mess on his counter one more time. Then he smiled, and rolled his eyes. “Right,” he said, Noctis feeling the stress slowly strain out of him under his touch. “I’m taking after my mother. It’s like an Ulric family tradition at this point, worrying about the food right before the big party.”

“You know you don’t have to cook for this, right? The Citadel has the whole menu covered, we’re not going to be starving for food.”

“Yeah, I know. But it’s only polite to bring some sort of food… though this won’t exactly be for eating.”

Noctis gave him a curious look, not sure what he could possibly have in mind that wasn’t edible based on the ingredients he was looking at. There was a cardboard box of dried fruit, some bags of assorted nuts, a couple jars of familiar, seasonal spices.

Noctis had to leave with his finished gift wrapping before he saw the results of Nyx’s labors come out of the oven. He would have to wait until the party to understand it in full. And even then, the apparent tradition of handing a fruit cake to the host must have been before his time, because he didn’t understand what in the hell his father was laughing about.

“I knew there was a reason I liked you, Ulric,” Regis chuckled, weighing the dense loaf in the palm of his hand like a scale.

“You might change your tune if anyone actually tries to taste that,” Nyx returned the amiable chuckle, the tension sapping out of him the longer he got a feel for Regis’s reaction to it.

The stress of the holiday season often made people a little sharper, Nyx had told Noctis, when he pressed him about what he was worried about, earlier in the day. Being made to see family they otherwise never met throughout the rest of the year, of meeting expectations with the perfect gift, the perfect dinner, of contributing to the construct of holiday cheer which flurried down on the city in snowfalls… Nyx said he saw it make some people more cruel than kind.

“But then, maybe I just take the grumpy route to work every day,” he had laughed.

Because when he went holiday shopping with Noctis throughout the month, attended the smaller functions on his arm, he got to see another side to Insomnia. Something as warm as his own home. The holidays had always been kind in Galahd, hearts warming to ward off the chill from the arctic freeze lancing across the sea. Insomnia had been a little more corporate, colder than Nyx was used to when he first moved in, he said. But as he got to know the city – most recently, through Noct’s more familiarized eyes – he was starting to see the better side of the holiday season in his neighbors.

“I’ll be saving this just for us,” Regis said, presently, letting Noctis hold the fruit cake.

The Prince nearly dropped it from how unexpectedly heavy it was. Nyx laughed while Noctis panicked, thinking he nearly ruined all his hard work.

“Please, I’d be more insulted if I _didn’t_ see it in the trash later,” Nyx teased.

Noctis didn’t fully understand the joke behind it, but both his boyfriend and his father seemed to be happy about it so, that was good enough for him. Whatever the fruit cake was meant to represent, it broke the ice between them, at any rate, and Nyx was more at ease at the dinner table with Regis’s approval cushioning his seat.

The King’s table was decked out in a fine roast and colorful sides, decorated in rustic pine branches and painstakingly realistic molds of wild berries and small forest creatures guarding the feast from the foliage. The savory smell of rosemary and thyme, sage and cloves, rose from the tray of brown meat at the center of the table, large vats of potatoes and sautéed vegetables and baskets of warm, baked bread to pair with vintage wines were passed around the table with merry teasing and loose conversation.

“See?” Noctis whispered to Nyx as the night wound down. “Worried for nothing.”

“You’re not going to feel so sympathetic towards me if you try that cake tomorrow,” Nyx chuckled.

Noctis just shoved his shoulder into his, shaking his head and feeling it spin with all the wine he’d drunk. The next day, his father would dare him to sit down and indulge in the dense cake, trying to explain to Noctis the significance of its apparent awfulness.

“Every country has a different reason for them,” Regis said. “The Galahdians believe that the gagging it induces relieves the evil spirits that plagued us throughout the year from coming into the new one.”

Noctis wrinkled his nose, skeptical that any cake could be considered that bad. But as much as he loved Nyx’s cooking, nothing could make the bland, dry cake he put into his mouth taste any better. Not even true love.

“You tried to kill us!” Noctis accused him later. “What was in that thing?”

“All my good intentions for our new year’s resolutions, little king.”

“You can keep them.”

“I’ll make it up to you with something sweeter.”

Damn him and his mistletoe kisses. That was the real secret ingredient to the holiday seasons, if anyone asked Noctis. Not that he ever planned on sharing.


End file.
